The next time I saw Carlene I was hoping things would be like last time and we could talk more about the Monster Jam and maybe I could have Chip call Dad.

But instead she was with her new best friend Bonnie.

She got Bonnie when we started at middle school because you meet new people there from all over the city not just our dumb-bum neighborhood.

Bonnie doesn’t really talk to me or live anywhere near us, according to her.

“We live on Pleasantview.”

“Where’s Pleasantview?” I asked.

They both looked at each other and started giggling.

I tried not to feel dumb because maybe it was funny.

Then I said, “It sounds nice. Pleasant view.”

Bonnie rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t even mean that—we don’t have a view of anything. It’s just a neighborhood. And we have an actual YARD at my house.”

Carlene turned red.

“We have yards,” I said, because we did. Each trailer had a square of grass or cement and some had back squares, too. And one trailer, in the corner where the Carters used to live, it had enough space for the tramp, which was pretty big if you asked me.

“These are not yards, huh, Carlene,” Bonnie said.

Carlene was now bright red.

I waited for her to say something. To say they were real yards. That Earl Bowen had a sign that said KEEP OUT OF YARD and how could you have that if you didn’t have a yard? And how Barbara Banks, who is now dead but still, how she won best landscaping by the Home Owners Association because she grew hollyhocks and had pinwheels and gnomes all over the place. I waited for her to tell Bonnie that she didn’t know what she was talking about.

I waited and waited and waited.

I waited so long I thought Bonnie’s face would fall off but then, finally, after fifty-five years, finally all quiet, Carlene said, “Not real yards.”

Not real yards?

She wouldn’t look at me and I wouldn’t look at me either if I were her.

I was about to get up my courage to say something. To say you both are wrong. And this is a fine place to live and shut your faces. I was about to say something like that but then Bonnie said, “So why did your dad leave?”

Just then a gigantic black mamba fell on Bonnie’s head.